Note 7 — Chapter IX · CONCLUSION

It is remarkable that Professor Schmiedel, who has gone nearly as far as M. Loisy in recognizing in detail the force of the pressures on the historical position, makes the avowal: “My inmost religious convictions would suffer no harm, even if I now felt obliged to conclude that Jesus never lived,”7 though as a critical historian he “sees no prospect of this.” He further avows that his religion does not require him “to find in Jesus an absolutely perfect model,” and that in effect he does not find him so.8 And he wrote in 1906 that “for about six years the view that Jesus never really lived has gained an ever-growing number of supporters,”9 adding that “it is no use to ignore it, or to frame resolutions against it.” It is accordingly with no kind of polemic motive as against so entirely candid a writer that I suggest certain criticisms of his emotional positions as tending unconsciously to affect his judgment of the critical problem.